Fire Service use TETRA radios, completely secure, yes completely.
Handheld radios are FM and frequencies widely available on the net
Handheld radios will end up digital in line with all other services, again secure.

Because the powers that be in this country still have a World War 2 / Cold War mentality. "Walls have ears". Everything must be secret. The public cannot be trusted.

Ironically, since the police made all their comms secure, they now make great effort to tell the public what they are doing via social media, recognising the importance of public communication. it never occurred to them to that open radio comms did that by default.

Besides, the REAL reason we have TETRA for emergency services is because the EU told us to do it. All EU countries do not have the same system and frequencies by accident. But that's another story.

Minus1 wrote:Because the powers that be in this country still have a World War 2 / Cold War mentality.

Very true but in terms of interoperability between services and departments, as well as the other benefits of having a digital trunked system that can effectively be routed anywhere in the world, you can really see the appeal.

It is just a shame that the entire thing is operated in a way that ensures mindbogglingly huge amounts of public money is siphoned off into the pockets of a handful of people and that our public services ultimately suffer in the long run as a result.